


we're spinning but the needle's stuck

by blackkat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Ron Weasley, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Family, Fix-It, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), M/M, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 15:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: When an Auror mission gone wrong lands Blaise and Ron in 1989, Blaise intends to keep his head down, undo the spells that sent them here, and get them back to their own time with no changes to mark their presence in the past.It's a shame that Ron has other ideas.





	we're spinning but the needle's stuck

**Author's Note:**

> We all knew it was only a matter of time before I dug my greedy little time-travel-loving hands into the depths of the HP fandom and pulled out a rare pair. Or several.
> 
> I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Bloody _hell_ ,” Weasley says.

Blaise entirely agrees. He stares at the street outside the shop, and the dusty, deserted interior was already enough of a sign that something was very wrong, but—

It’s a different Knockturn Alley. A different world. Those robes are at _least_ twenty years out of fashion, and there are no marks of the last war, slowly being sanded away with time and effort. No memorial on the corner, either, and Blaise knows that no one in their right mind would take that down, no matter what.

“Apparently,” he says, and is almost surprised when it comes out steady, “she wasn’t joking about breaking time like glass.”

When he turns away from the window, Weasley is pale as snow, gaze fixed on the street. Though, Blaise admits, that could be the blood loss—the wound the witch dealt him is still bleeding freely, staining his blue robes a crimson-black. He hasn’t seemed to notice yet, and a very large part of Blaise wants to turn away again, maybe head for the door and simply leave, but he grits his teeth, restrains a sigh, and stalks across the floor to crouch at Weasley's shoulder.

“Weasley,” he says, and if it’s a little sharp he thinks he can be forgiven. Not that he cares to be. “Do you know any healing charms at all?”

“Er.” Weasley blinks, glancing down at his shoulder, and then blinks again, like the wound is a surprise. “Well enough, probably.”

Blaise rolls his eyes, unimpressed, and draws his wand, flicking it sharply. Healing spells are simple enough; he’s had plenty of practice at this point, after the war and the occupation of Hogwarts and everything that came after. Easy enough to ignore the way Weasley hisses, because the stain has stopped spreading and that’s good enough for now. Blaise doesn’t want to risk trying anything more complex, not when he has no idea what kind of curse it was that left the mark.

“Well?” he asks, rising to his feet. He doesn’t bother to offer Weasley a hand. “Is there a DMLE protocol for unexpected time travel?”

Weasley groans as he pushes up, catching himself on a column as his balance wavers. “Not that I've ever heard of,” he says, gaze sliding back to the end of the street. “Hermione’d probably know.”

“I don’t care whether Granger would know,” Blaise says, perfectly steady. “She isn't here. I'm asking because you and I are, and no one else seems to be.”

With a grimace, Weasley steps away, turning to survey the interior of the shop. “Don’t be a git, Zabini,” he says, and clumps forward to pull up an overturned table. His breath catches, and Blaise turns sharply, expecting a trap, a curse—

There's a body, instead. Beatrix Turner, still and frozen, eyes wide and an expression of fury still on her face. Blaise swallows and very consciously doesn’t take a step back, though he wants to. Weasley’s been an Auror long enough that the only sign of discomfort is a tightness to his mouth, but Blaise is far less accustomed to corpses.

“Well, I guess we’re not getting home with her help,” Weasley says, and turns away, back to the street. He doesn’t look at Turner again, and Blaise manages to pull his eyes away after a long moment. Weasley is watching the far end of the street, scanning the faces that pass, but Blaise doesn’t know what he’s looking for and can't be bothered to ask.

“We should report in to the Ministry,” he says, because _some_ good has to come out of being on their payroll. Not that the pay is the reason Blaise does it. “There must be some way for them to fix this.”

There's a pause, and then Weasley looks back at him. There's an odd expression on his face, something that’s both distracted and sharp, and he says, “We’re in 1989.”

It feels a little like all the air has been sucked out of the room. “ _What_?” Blaise demands, louder and sharper than he intends. He joins Weasley at the window, trying to see whatever has given him that information, but there's no sign announcing the date, no notice board with the year on it.

Weasley actually grins a little, pointing across the street. “Chudley Cannons finished tenth in the league for the first time since 1894,” he says. “1989 was a good year for them.”

For a moment, Blaise can't quite comprehend what he’s hearing. He stares across the way, seeing the bright orange poster but not quite registering it, and then closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose. Of course. Twenty years out of their own time and all they have to rely on is Weasley’s obsession with the worst Quidditch team in the league.

“The Ministry, Weasley,” he says again, more sharply. “You are still an Auror, aren’t you?”

“Unwind your knickers, Zabini,” Weasley retorts. “The Ministry isn't going to be able to help. That’s why Turner was a threat in the first place.”

That fact sits like lead in Blaise's stomach, and he swallows, very pointedly doesn’t look over at his companion. He _knows_ that; the Department of Magical Law Enforcement wouldn’t have asked for his help if she wasn’t a serious danger to the public, and they certainly wouldn’t have put one of their star Aurors on the case with him if they’d been able to figure it out any other way. But—surely there’s _some_ way of getting back. Time Turners or such—the Unspeakables must have some sort of time device.

“I’ll check if Turner has anything on her,” Weasley says, a little more gently. Blaise gives him a dark look for it, and he rolls his eyes. “But—whatever that thing she broke, I don’t think she was carrying another.”

And, of course, her lab with all of her notes is twenty years in the future, entirely out of reach. Blaise closes his eyes, forces himself to think. He has money on him­—they were meeting Turner as buyers, after all—and he has his family’s name. His mother certainly won't make a fuss about him being caught out of time, especially right now. If he remembers correctly, she’s currently planning her fifth wedding, and entirely distracted with that. There's an unused flat in London, purchased by his second stepfather, and the wards should still let him in.

He forces his hands to unclench; his nails are digging into his palms, and it stings.

“We should stick together,” Weasley says, and Blaise doesn’t watch as he heads back to Turner’s body, though he can hear Weasley turn her over. “Pretty sure if this gets out we’d be grabbed by the first enterprising Death Eater with a fit of nostalgia.”

“I've _told you_ ,” Blaise starts sharply, “Malfoy isn't—”

He stops short. Death Eater. Not—not the remnants of the Death Eaters’ children, not the men and women they went to school with. This isn't Weasley painting every Slytherin with the same brush. He means the _original_ Death Eaters, Voldemort’s first followers. Peter Pettigrew, Walden Macnair, Lucius Malfoy, and the Carrows, and all the rest.

Blaise's side aches, and he closes his eyes, breathes carefully. Death Eaters, here and now, because Voldemort hasn’t been beaten by a boy with the heart of a lion and too much stubbornness to know when to die. He’s still out there, planning, plotting, waiting to come back. And if _any_ word of their presence in this time gets out, if anyone finds out that Blaise and Weasley traveled in ways no one should be able to manage and ended up a full two decades out of their rightful places, every one of Voldemort’s followers will try to find out their secrets, entirely ignoring the fact that Blaise and Weasley don’t actually _know_ them.

“I suppose,” he says, and it feels like a victory that it only wavers faintly, “that means the Ministry is entirely out of the question.”

“What?” Weasley glances up, opens his mouth, and then closes it again, looking vaguely constipated. “Yeah, I reckon so. My family might help us, but—”

Blaise has no desire to rely on Arthur Weasley and his family for assistance, no matter how dire the situation. “My late stepfather had a flat off of Diagon Alley,” he says. “As far as I'm aware, no one has set foot inside it since he left it to my mother, and no one will, either.”

A vaguely sour expression crosses Weasley's face. “Easy to come by, those flats,” he says, but he pushes to his feet again, holding up a small leather bag. “She’s not carrying anything more than this, and hell if I know what it’s supposed to be.”

With a roll of his eyes, Blaise takes the bag from him. It’s heavy, for all that it can fit in his cupped hands, and there are several bulging pockets. A glance inside makes him frown; it’s nearly full of some kind of dust, like very fine red sand, with several larger black stones half-buried in it.

“I've never seen such a thing,” he says curiously, and checks the lining of the bag. Dragonhide, unless he’s greatly mistaken, and that means the dust is likely something magical.

“Well, I wouldn’t go sticking your fingers in it,” Weasley says, but his expression says he isn't paying attention to Blaise, or even the street again. He’s chewing on his lip, and his gaze is distant, conflicted.

Blaise doesn’t bother to ask. He carefully closes the bag and slips it into his pocket, then says, “If you're done bleeding over everything, we should leave.”

Weasley blinks, glances down at his shoulder. “I'm not bleeding anymore,” he says, more cheerfully than Blaise thinks is really required. “You're pretty decent at healing charms for an icy bastard, Zabini.”

“Only an idiot would think that had anything to do with it,” Blaise tells him coolly, but the words do rouse a flicker of amusement in him, steady the lurch in the pit of his stomach that feels nauseatingly like panic. He takes a breath, glancing around the shop, and asks, “The body?”

For a moment Weasley hesitates. He glances back at Turner, and then his mouth firms, his chin tips up. He turns, flicks his wand, and a twist of flames curls from the tip. Fiendfyre, Blaise thinks, and jolts a step back before he can help it. Merlin. He always forgets that Weasley is actually an accomplished Auror, a brilliant wizard in his own right, and not just Potter's lackey.

“What body?” Weasley asks, and the Fiendfyre vanishes, leaving nothing behind. “Come on. I hope that flat of yours has more than one room.”

“Three,” Blaise tells him, and steps out of the shop into the icy fog of London in January. The shop door thumps closed behind them, but the one other person in the street doesn’t even bother to look over. “If that’s not enough, Weasley, you're welcome to find your own accommodations.”

“Didn’t I just say we should stay together?” Weasley asks, annoyed, and jabs his wand at the bloodstain on his robe. It fades, if not completely, and Blaise certainly isn't about to bother doing it for him correctly. “I've shared single beds before, though, and you're not at the bottom of the list for that, but you’re definitely not the top.”

Blaise pauses, chewing on that for a moment. Draco had that one brief period in fifth year when he was utterly convinced Weasley and Potter were shagging, and Blaise wonders now if Potter is one of the ones he’s shared a bed with. Wonders, too, who’s at the top of that list. Potter, probably—shagging or not he and Weasley are as close as any friends Blaise has met. Standing against a Dark Lord together probably does that to a friendship.

“Who would be at the very bottom of that list, then?” he asks, unable to resist the flicker of curiosity.

“Voldemort,” Weasley says decisively. “And Cormac McLaggen is just above him. Then Bellatrix, Malfoy senior, and Malfoy junior.”

That’s…very specific. Blaise blinks, raising a brow, but Weasley is turning the corner of Knockturn Alley and heading towards the heart of Diagon without looking back. Taking two long strides, Blaise catches up to him, then turns off the main street and down a side alley cluttered with potion shops.

“Well,” he says, vaguely amused, “I clearly share my place with several influential figures.”

Weasley makes a face. “’Course that’s the first thing that strikes you,” he says, eyes scanning the street. Pauses, and then says carefully, “What are the odds of you being able to do what Turner did?”

Irritation curls in Blaise's stomach, for once not at Weasley. “Poor,” he says grudgingly, because it stings that a witch with only half the schooling Blaise has had and no funding beyond the black market would be able to create such spells, but Blaise can't deny the truth of what happened. “Turner was…very good at what she did.”

With a grunt, Weasley mutters, “Bloody _enterprising inventors_.”

Hearing Turner’s phrase makes Blaise grimace. “She was certainly enterprising,” he says, wrinkling his nose. There were enough important documents and dangerous enchanted objects in her possession for her to keep ransoming them to the Ministry for _years_ , and that was without any of the ones she clearly planned on adding in the near future.

“Greedy,” is Weasley's verdict, derisive and disgusted.

When the Ministry asked for his assistance, Blaise was all too interested in the idea of a spell that could snatch objects out of time. He’d agreed to consult without hesitation, and—the learning part of that, studying Turner’s spells and the way she selected her targets, was certainly worthwhile. Her motivations were far less interesting, because Weasley is right; greed was her driving force, a desire for money, and Blaise finds it incredibly…pedestrian. If _he_ had that power, he’d do something far more creative with it.

“Maybe the other team found her lab,” Weasley says, squinting down the street. Then his eyes suddenly widen, and he jerks to the side, all but diving headlong into a shop full of potion ingredients.

Bemused, Blaise raises an eyebrow after him, then glances towards Diagon Alley as he follows more sedately. A flash of red hair draws his eye, and he snorts at the sight of Molly Weasley passing the street, the twins streaking in front of her like red-haired rockets, a miniature Ronald clinging to her hand, and a tiny redheaded girl in one arm. An adorable family, from a distance, though Blaise remembers the twins’ reaction to Umbridge much too well to want to get close when they're _that_ energetic.

Pushing open the shop door, he steps in, giving Weasley a cool, judgmental look where he’s lurking next to the dragonhide gloves. Since the shopkeeper is watching them both narrowly, he doesn’t pause, just reaches past Weasley to select a pair in his size and says, “I see you found them, thank you.”

“Er, yeah.” Weasley's gone ghost-white again, but he glances at the gloves, at Blaise, and draws in a careful breath. “Need anything else?”

Blaise goes to say no, remembers the pouch in his pocket, and says instead, “A neutral silver rod, preferably not collapsible.” He moves towards the shelf holding them, ignoring the shopkeeper’s lingering gaze, and Weasley follows at his heels, pale-lipped and tense. It’s a little strange to think that he hasn’t actually _been_ tense until now, and Blaise flicks a glance at him, debates how much he wants to care, and then asks, “Do you always have that violent a reaction to your mother?”

Weasley swallows visibly, glancing back towards the vanished family. “I—not her,” he says quietly. “That was Fred.”

Oh. Blaise's fingers freeze on the silver rod, and he stares at it for a moment, not quite seeing it. He and many other Slytherins took part in the battle, at the end, desperate to overthrow the Carrows and end Voldemort’s whole miserable reign. He didn’t see Fred Weasley’s death, but he heard Molly Weasley's scream, heard about her fight with Bellatrix Lestrange in the aftermath. Saw George Weasley and Lee Jordan, after the fight, with their heads bent together and their arms around each other.

Death is not an easy thing to bear, Blaise reflects. Far less easy, too, when it’s family.

“This one should work,” he says, instead of addressing Weasley's words. Pulling the rod from its shelf, he turns to pay the shopkeeper, then takes the bag he’s handed and heads for the door. Steps echo his, heavy but quick, so Blaise assumes he hasn’t lost Weasley entirely to his memories yet.

It’s rather shocking, admittedly, to think about. Everyone who died in the war is alive right now. Blaise's fifth stepfather isn't even his stepfather yet, is still breathing and fawning over his soon-to-be-wife with no idea of his approaching death. Or maybe he _is_ aware; after four dead, wealthy husbands, surely all the others must have some inkling, though Blaise supposes they could simply not care.

He could send a warning, he thinks, a little surprised at the impulse. After all, he has no particular feelings about his fifth stepfather, certainly no fondness. It seems the right thing to do, though, and Blaise has to wonder if Theo is right about working for the DMLE giving Blaise too many Gryffindor thoughts.

“The flat is just ahead,” he says, to distract himself. Even a first year Muggleborn student knows that changing timelines is a terrible thing to attempt. It never works. “On your left.”

Weasley nods, swallows. “The other team must know something happened,” he says, like he’s hoping for a distraction as well. “And once Harry hears we’re gone, he’ll start looking, too.”

It must be strange to have someone like that, Blaise thinks, who you _know_ will drop every last matter in order to look for you if you vanish. Who you can trust without hesitation or reservation to come for you. Other Slytherins had that, Blaise knows—Draco, even, in Greg and Vincent—but Blaise never wanted to involve himself with the children of Death Eaters. Theo was close enough to the edges of that, though given his relationship with his father Blaise tends to think that link can be written off as simply circumstantial.

“You mean once he hears _you_ are gone,” Blaise says dryly, and turns off the street. An archway covered in ivy shimmers as he approaches, and when Blaise puts his hand on the bolt it slides open without pause. He doesn’t quite breathe a sigh of relief, but he’d been trying not to consider what would happen if the wards _didn’t_ recognize him. Apparently they don’t keep tabs on age, though, and it’s one thing that’s gone right in this wretched day.

Weasley snorts. “If you think Harry wouldn’t do the same for absolutely anyone, you’ve never met him,” he says frankly, following Blaise up a flight of marble steps to a heavy wooden door. It opens under Blaise's touch as well, and he glances around the darkened interior, studying the half-forgotten layout. He, his mother, and his stepfather were here for a month, once, right after the honeymoon, and it’s Blaise's only real memory of Gregor beyond the wedding and the funeral that followed eight months later.

The words are enough to make Blaise frown a little, considering, and he says, “I don’t think we’ve ever spoken. Maybe once at the Ministry, or when Slughorn had one of his…parties.”

Weasley actually laughs at his tone. “Harry hated those, too,” he says, grinning, and when light floods the flat he whistles. “Blimey, I thought you meant a flat, not the wing of a palace.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Weasley,” Blaise says, undoing his cloak and dropping it over the back of a chair. The air has a bite to it still, but he can already feel it warming, and when he glances out the wide glass doors the glass hothouse is still verdant. That’s the place Blaise remembers most from his time here; Gregor had a fondness for plants, and his collection was expansive. They’ve probably gone wild since he died. It’s something of a shame.

“I'm not,” Weasley says, but he sounds distracted again, and when Blaise glances over at him he’s standing by one of the windows looking over the front garden. This time of year it’s almost entirely bare, but there's a tree heavy with peaches standing in the very center, the air around it shimmering like a heat haze.

“My stepfather enjoyed gardening,” Blaise says, though it should be obvious at this point. “The fruit is entirely edible, and the tree never stops producing.”

“Hermione would love that,” Weasley says, amused. “Or, well, she’d love the spellwork.”

Granger has never struck Blaise as much of a gardener, but he can believe she’d be interested in the theory. He opens his mouth to tell Weasley that Gregor had several books on the subject, then stops; there's no point when Granger is currently nine years old and likely doesn’t even know she’s a witch yet. Maybe, when they return to their own time, Blaise can show her, but that’s rather more effort than he wants to put into anything involving Granger. Or any of the Gryffindor trio who are now heroes of the country.

It would have been so much easier to take his mother’s offer, return to Italy at the start of the war and try to enroll in one of the smaller wizarding school. Blaise still wonders, sometimes, what possessed him that he didn’t. stupidity, likely, and a lack of foresight; he still hasn’t forgiven himself for that.

Blaise turns his back on the peach tree, looks instead for the table with the best natural light. After a moment’s study he decides on the kitchen table, set in an alcove between two windows, and lays out his things there, silver rod and dragonhide gloves and then last, carefully, the bag Turner was carrying. The stones sunk into the powder haven’t shifted, and they seem to glitter in the murky sunlight, something so subtly off that Blaise feels it best as a prickle across his shoulder blades, a touch of wrongness like his eyes are playing tricks on him.

With a half-hidden grimace, he sinks down in the closest chair, draws his wand. The Ministry may have brought him in to help analyze and deconstruct Turner’s spells, but he’s had no luck before now, even with a handful of found artifacts to test and pull apart, ransomed items reclaimed that he could test for residue. Time manipulation may have been Turner’s foremost skillset, but covering her tracks was certainly a close second.

It’s a vaguely unpleasant surprise when the chair across from him scrapes across the floor as it slides out, and a body falls into it, perfectly graceless. “Is that even connected to her spells?” Weasley asks, and Blaise doesn’t bother to look up as he draws his wand from his sleeve.

“If it’s not, our chances of managing anything close to a return from this end are slim at best,” Blaise says derisively, because that should be obvious. “Especially given that you in your infinite wisdom destroyed Turner’s body.”

“She didn’t have anything else on her, Zabini,” Weasley says, annoyed. “I checked.”

Blaise rolls his eyes, but doesn’t try to protest. Aurors are, he will grudgingly admit, trained to find hidden things. “Even so—”

Weasley makes a sharp, angry sound and pushes to his feet. “Every Death Eater in the Ministry would’ve found out about that body inside a day,” he snaps. “And I for one don’t want to be the reason one of them jumps back to warn Voldemort about the end of the war, all right? Though maybe that’s different for _you_ , Zabini.”

Cold, distant fury snakes its way down Blaise's spine to coil in his gut, and he raises his head, mouth thinning into a flat line. “You would do well to remember,” he says quietly, “that I, like the vast majority of Slytherins, never supported the Dark Lord, Weasley. Move. You're blocking my light.”

Weasley snarls, jerking around. He stomps away towards the center of the flat, and Blaise looks down at Turner’s bag, breathes in, breathes out. His side aches, low down under his ribs, and he digs his thumb into the center of his palm, trying to ignore it. An old wound, _years_ old now, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

They need to get home before even the smallest change alters the timeline. Blaise needs to work out Turner’s magic, twist it back around, repair the time she shattered. Potter will be working from his end, because Weasley is here, but Blaise can't leave it to him and his team. There's a reason the Ministry called him in, after all, and Blaise is supposed to be the best. He can't be otherwise, not if they want to get back in one piece.

He shuts out the sound of Weasley in the next room, pushes away the thought of Death Eaters in this Ministry’s halls just waiting for the advantage of a spell like Turner’s. Easier, more immediate to focus on the hows and why of their presence in this time, and finding the best way to undo it.

Their discretion will save them here. If no one notices their trip through time, no one will want to replicate it. If they make no changes to the past, there will be no clues as to their presence. All they have to do is keep their heads down for the few weeks undoing the spell with hopefully take, and then it will be as simple as slipping out of this time and stepping right back into their present.


End file.
